


Skywriter

by Camisado



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, England (Country), Gen, NaNoWriMo, Other, Paranormal, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-04
Updated: 2013-01-14
Packaged: 2017-11-23 15:52:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/623862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Camisado/pseuds/Camisado
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mabel doesn’t believe in the paranormal. And I mean she stubbornly doesn’t believe, to the point that we just don’t bring it up. That’s why I can’t tell her how my sister died. Her disbelief might be the end of us.<br/>[NaNoWriMo 2012 story]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The entire story is a little unpolished, but I'm pretty happy with this first chapter. I want to make this story into a comic, so I really want to test the waters and see if it actually interests anyone! Thanks for reading.

I am about to make my best friend very happy.

Mabel learned to drive a few years ago, but she hasn’t been able to keep the savings required to both buy a car and insure it - and her parents are the stingy kind of rich people who charge her too much keep and won’t lend her money or buy her a £200 car to get her started. But today, Mabel is going to be super pleased, because I have just bought myself a new car, and she’s about to receive a 1979-registered classic Volkswagen Polo.

I’m sure I could sell this car for something close to two grand, but we have plenty of money sitting around considering recent events, and I’m happy to give her something after she’s been so supportive, not to mention my only close friend, in those recent events.

I met Mabel at work, at the local university. She’s a very skilled book restoration technician - what used to be called a book binder until everyone got politically correct about job titles. Meanwhile, in true tribute to Doctors Venkman, Stantz and Spengler, I work in the somewhat controversial Parapsychology department.

The thing is, Wessex is a very, very strongly paranormal place. We have rich histories of creatures, ghouls, witchcraft and magic; you name it, something has existed in Wessex at some point. In fact, in my home county of South Wessex, black dogs are still something of a current enigma. I have personally been seeing the Gurt Dog of Outer Wessex since I was a little girl - around the time my mother died on one of my father’s crazy supernatural excursions into South America. They say that the Gurt Dog can only be seen by people that have experienced some sort of supernatural calamity in their family, so I know that what I’ve been told of my mother’s death is a lie.

It’s a thirty-five mile drive to Mabel’s house in Sandbourne - something we consider an inconvenient distance in England - but it’s enjoyable. I had gotten up particularly early on this Saturday morning, and chosen to take the rural back roads from my new coastal home in Budmouth, via the local British Army camp and Kingsbere, avoiding the local market town of Casterbridge.

I love the roads past the army camp. They’re wide enough for two tanks to pass comfortably, so they are beautiful wide roads to really let go and enjoy the drive. I don’t enjoy driving as much as my older colleagues say they used to back when there were less drivers on English roads, but this is my favourite road in South Wessex when it’s quiet. It’s when I truly understand how they could possibly enjoy driving so much.

The two miles pass too quickly, although I suppose it is my fault for opening the throttle so much. It seems fitting to travel my favourite road during my last trip in my old car. She’s not the most economical thing on the planet, given her age, but she does perform well on an open road. I smile as I look down at the fuel gauge; I’d filled up at a 24-hour petrol station soon after my departure, but my driving hadn’t been kind to the fuel tank. I had never guaranteed Mabel a full tank of petrol, had I? She could surely afford it, since she didn’t have a particularly long way to drive to work.

I drew closer to the conurbation of Havenpool and Sandbourne. I’d visited Havenpool very recently with Mabel; recent events, again. It wasn’t somewhere I particularly wanted to visit again, as I was quickly running out of relatives to feed their crematorium. As Havenpool had a dying town centre, it wasn’t somewhere I commonly visited; rather somewhere I passed through on the way to Sandbourne by car or by the train service that ran to London. I supposed that the visits would become less and less, given the reason I’d visited the town the last two times.

Finally, I could see the “Welcome to Sandbourne” sign. _Twinned with Lucerne, Switzerland, and Netanya, Israel_ , the sign claimed. It was a common sight in South Wessex, as I assumed it was in many other counties of England. In fact, my new home of Budmouth was twinned with three! I remembered them exactly, because that was the sort of useless information I stored in my mind. _Haapsalu, Estonia; Holzwickede, Germany; Louviers, France_.

I realised suddenly that I hadn’t brought my sat-nav. It might come as a surprise to some people, but I’d always had Mabel in the car when visiting her house before, or used my sat-nav in order to get there. When someone else is directing me, I have trouble bothering to remember the route. I sighed and pulled into the nearest side road to check the location on my phone.

Immediately after memorising the route, I found myself wondering out loud how I would pronounce _Holzwickede_ , as I had never learned German, and then discovered that I had no idea where I was going again. At least it was giving Mabel more and more time to be out of bed and presentable, and I would have more time to spend with my old car.

Of course, checking my phone again would suggest to me that I had managed to park up outside Mabel’s house while trying to teach myself German, indicating that I had some sort of subconscious memory of the route to her house. Excellent.

There was a driveway, so I opted to pull up into it. Mabel lived in a beautiful three-story townhouse in a place called Madeira Mews. It was slightly bizarre in that her parents’ bedroom was on the bottom floor and hers was on the top, with the kitchen and dining room sitting on the central floor, but I supposed it gave her more independence from them. She was just a year younger than me - 23 - but had never wanted to move out. The same with me, I suppose, although my parents were never present in our family home.

I noticed Mabel’s mother at the kitchen window, turning her nose up at the sight of my old car as usual. What a surprise she would get. She was like a smaller and older version of Mabel, with the same long, dark, straight hair, thin face and beanpole-thin body. I envied the green eyes that ran in their family; as someone of Southern American descent, I have dark brown eyes, a dominant gene. I had little chance of acquiring my birth mother’s beautiful hazel eyes - the same with my half-sister Núria.

I was a little offended by her apparent distaste for the Polo; it was beautifully maintained and recently very painstakingly T-Cut by myself so that the red paint looked good as new. It was difficult to dislike the Polo; who could possibly dislike classic Volkswagen cars? They were cult icons, surely, and something of this car’s age that still looked so good should be revered, in my opinion.

I watched her mother disappear from the window - probably shouting for her to get dressed and come downstairs to meet me. I felt bad for not forewarning them of my early arrival - or any arrival at all - because Mabel’s parents still treated her like a teenager, despite her age. It was probably because she’d never left home, and her parents hadn’t changed their mentality. She was always going to be their baby, whether she liked it or not.

Mabel is ghastly thin and annoyingly tall; I’m not short for a British woman, but she dwarfs me completely, as if I were standing next to Stephen Merchant. They say opposites attract, don’t they? We certainly looked quite the odd couple when hanging out together at lunchtimes and weekends.

“Zaneta, look at your hair! Oh my gosh, so brave! It’s wonderful!”

Mabel’s vocabulary suggests to most people that she spends too much time on the internet, specifically Tumblr. It betrays the fact that she is very well-read. Perhaps she puts it on to sound more normal, as she doesn’t want to be regarded as a geek.

That requires she doesn’t wear Buddy Holly’s glasses and dress relentlessly in skinny turtleneck sweaters, though, I suppose. If Mabel knew what a hipster was, she would probably identify with them, but she is blissfully unaware of any kind of fashion culture. I like that about her. I pretend that I don’t care about fashion, with my very mixed wardrobe, but I still find myself comparing my appearance to other girls my age and younger, and it generally depresses me.

“I thought you were getting your new car yesterday?” Mabel implored, looking over the Polo, a rather confused expression on her pretty face.

“I did”, I replied, “So I’m giving this one to you, because I didn’t need the part exchange credit.”

There was a very long pause as Mabel tried to process what I was saying to her, so I cemented my words by handing her the keys.

“Zaneta, you’re crazy.”

“No Mabel, I’m giving you a car. This car. This awesome, awesome car that I’ve had for five years and so painstakingly taken care of. I will help you maintain it, but I have entered the era of modern car ownership.”

Mabel squeaked a bit as if she were trying to say some words that weren’t coming to her. She then hugged me very tightly, as if attempting to suffocate me in case I asked for some kind of payment for the car. I patted her back, while smiling at her mother, whom, I assumed, had seen me hand the keys over, because she looked even more disdainful than before.

If it stopped Mabel getting the bus and hassling them and others for a lift, what was the problem?

“Let’s see what you got, then,” Mabel said, clearly trying to hold back some happy tears. She nodded to my smartphone; obviously I had photos in there.

I smiled, rubbing her shoulder in empathy, “I shall show you what I got, Mabel, but can we please go inside? I drove here in a 33-year-old car and it’s freezing out here. By the way, you should probably invest in some suitable driving gloves.” I held up my hands, white from the near hour-long journey at a cold steering wheel in British October weather.

“Of course!” chirped Mabel, horrified that she hadn’t thought about this - she was still warm from the sweater that had been hanging over her personal heated towel rail all night, and the excitement of finally owning an automobile.

I kicked off my new and colourful high-top trainers, looking at them longingly as I ascended the cream staircase to enter the main living area of the Pangulayans’ townhouse. Mrs Pangulayan still looked less than impressed, though Mr Pangulayan had recently emerged from the study and was looking out of the front window with interest.

“Isn’t it great, Dad? I can finally drive anywhere I want!” Mabel said enthusiastically, carefully side-eyeing her mother. If she could win her father over on this, her mother wouldn’t bother objecting any more. Well, she’d be objecting a bit more subtly, anyway.

He smiled, glancing down onto the driveway again, “Yes, Mabel dear, but you’d best get some insurance sorted out fairly sharpish if you want to go anywhere in it. How are you getting home, Zaneta?”

I smiled, “I was planning to walk or take the university bus into town and get the train back to Budmouth, Mr P. I haven’t used it in such a long time, and the views will be lovely today.”

The advantages of living in a university town; free buses. As staff, we could show our ID cards for Sandbourne University - or SU as it was called by staff, pupils and locals - and use the student buses for free.

“Very good, then” he said, and wandered off again.

Mrs Pangulayan forced a smile, eyeing my new and improved haircut but not commenting on it, “Could I get you a drink, Zaneta? Perhaps a hot one, after your final journey in that draughty car?”

“A hot chocolate would be lovely,” I responded, forcing a smile right back at her, “And it will probably comfort you to know, for Mabel’s welfare, that it isn’t draughty. It’s merely got a rather old but functioning dashboard heater that sometimes doesn’t fancy getting up in the morning.”

You’re probably starting to wonder about the surname. It’s a Filipino surname, but nobody in Mabel’s immediate family seems to exhibit any traits of the Filipino race. I suppose that in a family full of male heirs - right up until Mabel - that kind of surname can survive many generations since immigration.

Mabel doesn’t believe in the paranormal. And I mean she stubbornly doesn’t believe, to the point that we just don’t bring it up. She politely asks what I have done at work that day but she clearly thinks that my job is costing the university money that they could be spending elsewhere; although, you’d never tell your best friend that, would you?

That’s why I can’t tell her how my sister died. Her disbelief might be the end of us.


	2. Chapter 2

Full of hot chocolate and bundled up in coats, Mabel and I took the next free bus into the town of Sandbourne, intending to catch separate buses up to the train station - located so inconveniently just out of comfortable walking distance - and her back to her house to find out about car insurance.

“I tried putting your details in, Mabel; it’s probably going to be pretty pricey this year as you’ve never been insured on a vehicle before so you’ve no no-claims discount.”

Mabel waved her hand, “Zaneta, you’ve already really helped me out; I’m going to be fine, since I don’t need to pay for the car any more.”

I tried not to smile; I knew Mabel would carefully avoid the subject of offering me any money for the car. I didn’t mind, as that was just how she was - probably a result of Mr and Mrs Pangulayan’s very frugal parenting.

“So, Z, how about some pics of your hot new ride?”

I laughed, because it wasn’t a hot new ride by most peoples’ standards, and she was probably going to be surprised by what I’d opted for. I pulled my phone from my coat pocket (I’m not much of a handbag person), and brought up the gallery application. I flicked back through the couple of photos I’d taken of frosty Sandbourne this morning, then presented her with the device.

“It’s... a Toyota?” Mabel asked, after studying the picture for a few seconds.

“That’s right,” I said, nodding, “It’s a Toyota Yaris. I think they’re hella cute.”

The one I’d selected was the five-door hatchback model in petrol blue with a slightly sportier engine, or so claimed the badge under the Yaris lettering on the back. Manual - I wouldn’t trust a car to change gears for me, like ninety percent of the UK alongside me.

Mabel smiled somewhat fondly and handed my phone back, “Well, now I know what to look for when we pass on the road!”

Somewhere internally, I laughed. Mabel wasn’t commenting on the fact that I hadn’t bought a brand new car when I had the capital for it, but that was what she was thinking. I knew this was going to be the immediate reaction from people; they always want to know why you didn’t go for something better, something bigger, something newer. Something less unassuming.

The truth? I loved my Polo but it was an identifiable car due to its age and Volkswagen’s cult status. A Yaris is a nice, small, economical and cute car. I had my reasons for wanting to be more anonymous.

Mabel pointed across the town square, where we alighted the bus - although the square in question was in fact a circular shape. “Coffee, then?”

“After all that hot chocolate?” I asked, wondering why I was the only one that remembered the sheer amount of chocolate we had consumed from the Pangulayans’ capsule drink machine.

“I said coffee!” Mabel repeated happily, apparently ready for more hot and sickly drinks, “Or tea if you’re going to be boring.”

“It might settle my stomach,” I agreed.

Mabel took my hand and pulled me across the square, dodging people selling Big Issues, and avoiding the girls handing out leaflets, unless they meant a shopping discount. We emerged at the other side with pot-luck discount cards for the nearest chain of a large clothing store, so we agreed to visit there as soon as the tea-or-coffee-drinking was over.

“I got twenty percent!” Mabel crowed as she ripped her discount card open, alarming the people stood with us in line at the café.

I tore mine open somewhat more demurely; ten percent. Mabel really was having a good day for saving money. She looked over at mine and said, “Well, why don’t we put everything through on my transaction when we get there? And drinks are on me. It’s the least I can do.”

That was ever so slightly more generous than I expected her to be, based on her parents. I graciously accepted her offer, despite knowing that I was choosing the least expensive drink in the café...though it didn’t quite beat the 25p cups of tea at work, if you could weather the taste of powdered coffee creamer in your beautiful leaf tea, or alternatively learn the timing of the drink dispenser and remove the cup before it coughed that hideous white powder into it.

“So it’s your first day back at work on Monday, huh?” Mabel asked, settling down with something ridiculously full of chocolate and sugary flavoured syrups. If I knew her, it would be her usual; a white chocolate mocha with two shots of peppermint syrup, and she comforted herself by “balancing it out” with soya milk. Ultimately it was a drink with a pricetag that could feed a small African village for a few days.

“Yeah,” I said. I’d had a month off work, which was refreshing; by the time I got back to the university, all the freshers weeks would be over, and I would be able to get back into the swing of things whilst all the new students found their feet. We would probably take to hanging out in the student union again - as some of the university’s youngest staff, that was something we could get away with. Mabel enjoyed “scouting” for boys, but she would never be brave enough to talk to any of them. Besides, she didn’t really fancy a younger man. She found boys our age to be immature at the best of times, and she wasn’t a particularly judgmental person.

Mabel sipped her coffee through a straw, despite the warning on its paper wrapper; a quirk she had developed from wearing braces a few years ago. I decided she might expect the effects of the caffeine to hit her more quickly, in the same way that alcohol is supposedly more potent through a straw.

“Are you gonna be okay?” Mabel asked carefully, as she’d been trying to avoid this subject with me ever since the crematorium. It had unnerved her that I had remained so stoic and quiet during the ceremony. I had explained that I grieve in my own way due to my unique family configuration and my unusual upbringing, and hadn’t bothered to tell her that I suspected my recently deceased sister was now visiting my _abuela_ on a nightly basis, or that she’d been killed by some Eldritch abomination.

There are lots of things I don’t mention to Mabel just to keep the peace. As far as she was aware, Núria had hemorrhaged suddenly and unexpectedly while returning from a jaunt with her friends. This was a sad story to have to tell, but there was nothing else we could say that didn’t sound completely made up to most people.

In truth, I had read the hospital reports and the police reports, and they were horrifying. A press embargo had been placed on the information - an embargo so strong that nobody even had an inkling that it existed. The local rag had been round to interview myself and my _abuela_ , played up the story of my father and stepmother being absentees, especially during their youngest daughter’s death, and speculating how terrible my life as an only child was now going to be.

“I’m going to be fine,” I said, and I gave a well-practiced smile and sipped at my tea. I sighed gratefully; I’d opted to go with full-fat milk rather than the skimmed alternative. Why did cafés never offer semi-skimmed, when most of the nation bought it for home use? I was guilty of enjoying entire half-litres of gold-top Jersey milk in one go, though, so I shouldn’t really blame local cafés for supplying blue-top milk.

Mabel stirred her drink with the straw and then made a half-hearted joke, “I can give you tips on being an only child, I guess. It’s pretty sweet.”

There was a long silence, and then I burst out laughing; it was a joke that was going to come my way quite a lot, as many people that knew me would realise that I don’t treat death as something final and sad. “Mabel, you’re terrible! We should talk about something else, if it makes you uncomfortable.”

She exuded a kind of “heh” noise as she stopped laughing herself, and she looked me in the eyes, “Zaneta, you’re amazing. I don’t know how you deal with stuff like this so casually. I wish I could be as strong as you. I mean, how is a death in your family more uncomfortable for me to talk about than for you to talk about?”

We both know the answer, so I don’t respond. Instead, I twirl some hair around my index finger from the long strands that hang down the left side of my face. Mabel takes this as a prompt to ask something else.

“So, the haircut. Pretty drastic!” Mabel said, eyeing the side where it had been shaved down to a soft and downy layer of hair.

I really like the uneven look of my new haircut, shoulder-length on one side and shaved to a centimetre short on the right. My fringe has remained long with a ruler-straight edge, but the rest of my hair is carefully sculpted into choppy layers, ranging from long to short. I haven’t even found that it takes too long to style in the morning, as I did when I had a shoulder-length bob-type haircut before Núria was taken from us.

The real beauty is that my prized possession, the little dreamcatcher I made with my _abuela_ when I was a small girl, is now displayed fully for all to admire. Before, it peeked out from under my hair as if it were shy, the feathers appearing like any other pair of earrings or hair accessory. But now, it hung from a stud in my right ear, a new leather cord holding it in place as it swung freely in any breeze that cared to dance with it.

My stepmother hated it, saying it was unhygienic and looked tatty. Mabel’s parents probably thought the same thing, especially after turning up with my “alternative” haircut this morning - they probably didn’t realise I’d heard them talking as we drank our rich hot chocolates in the lounge.

You do learn, eventually, that it’s just better not to take any notice of other people, because it really shouldn’t matter to you what other peoples’ opinions of you are. It leads to brooding and spite, and life’s just too short for that.

“I think it’s a nice way to get over heartbreak, don’t you?” I asked, running my hands through my hair and then carefully brushing my geometric fringe back down into a respectable position. “That’s what I’m told girls do after a romantic relationship ends, anyway. I think my sister would have loved it, too; she always thought I was terribly boring and unadventurous.”

Mabel smiled, nodding, “Yeah, Núria would be totally jealous of that, actually.”

I wasn’t sure about jealous, because she was a girl who would just wear her reddish-brown hair in two braids every day with little variation, but it was nice to hear that Mabel seemed to be in approval of my haircut.


End file.
